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Photography vocabulary · Files & Image Quality

Noise

Meaning in photography, with examples

/nɔɪz/nounCore term

In photography, noise means: Random specks of color or brightness that make a photo look grainy, especially at high ISO or in shadows that have been brightened.

In Turkish: kumlanma, gren, noise

How it is used

Photographers talk about noisy images, high-ISO noise and noise reduction in software. Digital noise is not the same as film grain, though grain is used loosely for both. Some noise is acceptable; too much noise reduction makes skin look like plastic.

Example sentences

  1. At ISO 12800 there's a lot of noise, but the moment is worth it.

  2. Apply some noise reduction to the night shots before you export them.

Common collocations

  • high-ISO noise
  • noise reduction
  • digital noise
  • color noise
  • ISOThe setting that controls how strongly the camera amplifies the signal from its sensor. A higher ISO makes the image brighter in low light but adds noise.
  • underexposedToo dark because not enough light reached the sensor, so shadow areas lose detail and brightening them later adds noise.
  • sensorThe light-sensitive chip inside a digital camera that records the image. It does the job that film did in older cameras.
  • editTo improve photos after the shoot by adjusting things like exposure, color and cropping, and to choose which images to keep.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Files & Image Quality

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